Bunn Street

 

We rented a two bedroom ranch house on Bunn street right under what is now Veteran's Parkway in Bloomington, Illinois. There was a viaduct directly south of us that traffic ran over and a day old bakery store across the street. We didn't know it at first, but we shared a long driveway with a family that lived way way back behind us. Soon we discovered they had a yard full of tires and car parts and Sunday afternoons were their special time to ride little motor bikes up and down our shared driveway. It was like living next to a nest of giant bees. The buzzing was so loud you could barely hear yourself speak when they were riding. And they rode all Sunday afternoon.

The very first day we moved down there, we had to buy a bed. We went to several stores downtown and bought a queen size mattress from the first one who would deliver it, along with a simple metal bed frame, that afternoon. Now we owned a bed and a small Danish table! The angora goat rug was a casualty of having a dog who thought it smelled heavenly and peed on it the moment we laid it on the floor. No amount of dry cleaning could stop that smell and the cost of cleaning the leather backing was horrendous. We also bought an old refrigerator from a second hand store on Empire and Grandma gave us the old library couch that we refinished and recovered for our living room. 

Money was running out, but there was a sliced ham at the Eisner store that someone had not taken. We bought it and froze each slice separately. We also bought some hamburger and figured we could make it to our first payday without starving. I applied for a job at State Farm and he was working a lot of overtime. One night he came home, gobbled down his dinner and I walked him back out to his car when he went back to work. When I went back in Ninna, our dog, was sitting on my chair at the table. She had eaten my dinner! I remember I cried and she seemed very remorseful.

One of those early weekends when we went home to visit my parents they cooked a ham because they knew we had been scrimping on money and they wanted to do something special! The homemade macaroni and cheese my dad made was extraordinary, but more ham? Ugh! We never said a word though.

I was offered a job in Personnel Records at the downtown Home Office. He would drop me off when he went to work and pick me up on the way home. One time our car was in the shop and we had to call a cab. Imagine our surprise when it showed up with two other people already in it and dropped us all off one at a time like some sort of bus. He was still working overtime nearly every night, so after picking me up from work we would often go to Steak N Shake and split a cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate shake before I dropped him back at the Grossman building and went home. This was a true luxury back then.

Working at State Farm was okay. I shared an office with three other women. Two of them were the group insurance people. Two of us were Personnel Records Clerks.  It was the second to the lowest pay grade in the company, but because I was the wife of new career level underwriter I was invited to a tea by the wife of the company president. I didn't go. First of all I wasn't sure what to wear. Also driving out there was going to require a lot of car shuffling and finally there was the fact that I had just started a new job and I felt funny asking for time off right away.

These were the last days in the old Home Office before State Farm moved us out to the new Corporate building. There were sill huge mirrors on every corner, because couriers used to roller skate through the building delivering the in office mail and their first computing machine was up on eighth floor for display. It was enormous. My job took me all over the building from the ground floor to the executive floor, but I was walking, not roller skating. We kept the personnel files up to date by typing new admissions and filing salary sheets, employee evaluations and conflict of interest statements. I learned to recognize the scrawls that were the signatures of all the important people in the company and I had to take care of OSHA demands by being sure contract employee's seniority dates were correct and all the up to date information was posted at all the right times.  It was a varied and interesting job. And because we were just across the alley from the back of Kresge's we could sneak down there once in a while and buy a grilled caramel danish from their counter.

Now that I was also working we could afford to give Grandma back the library couch to put in the attic and we bought a two piece tuxedo sectional from Goodwill. It was ivory satin and ninety inches long if you put the two pieces together. It was not new, but it was a real couch and we were even taking tennis lessons at Sate Farm Park. We were beginning to feel like we were moving up a bit.

One of the women I worked with lived in a lovely mobile home and that led to us finding a very nice used one in a beautiful mobile home court. We were ready to stop renting and buy something.